Words like "隔靴掻痒"



But seriously, just no reason to stop, now, as others have said. Already into it. I'd like to use it for something useful, but I don't know what.

Original motivation was a bad case of otakuitis, though.

Gf at the time borrowed the anime Chobits off a friend, we watched it in English and I loved it. I really liked the theme song so I dl'ed it and started listening to it. Then she bought home 2 Asian-Kung-Fu-Generation cd's and I've loved them ever since. At that time I liked and watched a bit of Anime but only in English, however, I listened to the theme songs a lot and started to explore other Japanese music and was always looking up words in a dictionary out of a burning desire to know what they meant.

I bought a beginners study book from the book store because the ball was definitely rolling and I wanted to up my game. That worked out for about a month but the book just didn't gel with me. Then I found RTK, AJATT and SRS... I've never looked back.

I had no reason in the beginning other than it just happened out of a burning desire to know what the ***** they were singing about. As time has gone on I've slowly come to know and love a lot about Japan though I've seriously only just scratched the surface I feel.

I live in a country which is considered by it's own population (speaking for aucklanders here) to be the international dumping ground of the world. People come here cos it's cheap to do so (so I hear) and it's such a "diverse" place to the point I hear 4 - 5 languages daily in the city. The population is seriously effing multicultural (not that that's a bad thing, just saying). It has it's own culture in the form of an attitude which can be summed in the phrase "she'll be right". Other than that it's imported from America, Britain and even Australia. So it amazes the shit out of me getting to know a country that speaks its own unique language with such a rich culture, deep and intriguing history, unique popular culture, has a different way of thinking than I know AND is very oriented towards future technology it just seems there's no way I can't be intrigued by that.

I love New Zealand and have traveled a lot of the north island. I've lived in Australia for 2 years aswell and that taught me so many lessons about life and the world, it really opened my eyes in a way staying at home never could. Naturally experiencing Japan will broaden my horizons even further and that alone is worth all the effort.

If I wasn't allowed to rant self-indulgently and share some of my experiences i'd have to sum it up in one phrase and say 好きになちゃったから。

<----- Studies Japanese to find out why he studies Japanese.

nest0r Wrote:my brain was injured and I forgot all of my Japanese. Ever since, I have been haunted by my former Japanese knowledge, and vowed to regain it.

That explains a lot. Now was this before or after you were abducted by aliens?

J7 Wrote:Those ridiculously oversized tits, again? I see 20+ girls on the subway every day more attractive than her. They might not have 巨乳, but they aren't fat either

I was gonna say "butterface" but I think you put it quite nicely.

Nukemarine Wrote:Jarvik,

Quit frightening the children with reality.

Truth's gotta come out somehow, I guess.

hmmm, anime was probably originally what got me interested, then it went onto drama's and pop-music. Girls was also a good reason, but that won't really get you too far, well depends lol

'Right then, let me be 100% honest:

There aren't any decent fansubs for Digimon.

That was enough reason for me to start. Haven't found a reason to stop yet.

omg digimon. It's been ages since I've seen that. Haha now I'm going to look up the Japanese intro's for that show haha good old times, or should i say the good old days!(although i don't think i should be saying that being only 二十歳 but whatever works i guess)

I started 8 years ago because I liked the moon cartoons, but kept giving up because my study methods consisted of paper flashcards, brute-force kanji memorization, and boredom. I picked it back up for real three months ago after finding AJATT, RtK, this forum, SRS, etc. Reading things in a language that looks like a mess of squiggles to everyone else is fun now! Plus, I can read things (同人誌) that never have been and never will be translated.

I wanted to learn a language for about three years, but none of them seemed useful. I finally decided to learn for the hell of it, and chose Japanese for some reason I don't quite remember. I don't think there's any going back after you learn your first 1000 kanji...

ta12121 Wrote:Haha now I'm going to look up the Japanese intro's

Even better:

(Lol. But, can you imagine American voice actors having the cajones to sing in character? Yeah.)

haha i'm sure some ppl will recognize this song for sure.

and the full version of this song

Enjoy!

chamcham Wrote:I think Fuko is the best reason for learning Japanese....haha... :-)

*snip MENTALLY DISTURBING IMAGES*

Wow that is just .... ew (no offense to anyone with boobs the size of a zeppelin).

I think the first time I ever felt interested in Japan was when a Japanese lady came to my elementary school (I was maybe 7 or 8 at the time) and showed us how to make origami. I live in an area where the population is made up almost entirely of whites and hispanics (and maybe the occasional black person), so "Japanese" and "origami" and things like this were completely and utterly new to me in every way.

When I was about 11 I discovered Sailormoon. I would sing along to the music (such as the openings, endings, image songs, et cetera), even though I couldn't understand a word of it. I learned some really basic words and kanji, like 水 and かわいい, but it took me almost a decade before I ever thought, "You know, I think I'll try to seriously learn Japanese."

I don't really know why I decided to do it, it just was one of those things like, it was the most natural thing in the world and to do anything else but that would just be utterly wrong.

I'm at the point that even if I never use Japanese for anything remotely useful or meaningful, I have to learn it completely and fully, to the extent that I can communicate in it as comfortably as in my native tongue. When I told my mom that she thought I was absolutely insane.

@mirina

Same here, ppl think i'm crazy for learning it. Alot of people say you should learn a more useful language, such as french or spanish. But to be honest, if you do not have a strong interest in learning the language it really doesn't matter what langauge you learn. B/c if you do not like it, you're going to eventually give up on it. Since japanese is a strong interest of mine, becoming fluent is the goal and nothing more.